Home sharing on but not linking up.....

Alright an update on my situation. It's a novel. To refresh everybody, I have multiple laptops connecting to an appletv 2 and they work flawlessly with home sharing. One is a macbook, one is xp and the other is vista. All wireless including the appletv. I have a linksys router running dd-wrt. I also have my main "media" desktop that has all my content that connects to the network wirelessly as well running vista. We'll call this "vistadesktop".

Earlier in this thread I stated that some of the other laptops could play content off the vistadesktop via home sharing but that the apple tv couldnt see vistadesktop and vistadesktop couldnt see the other home shared laptops... Well now I understand it was just "sharing" that the laptops were seeing and not "home sharing". Confusing...

So Homesharing for whatever reason will not work on vistadesktop, as soon as I activate home sharing the icon on the left side disappears and nothing ever reappears. I've seen many others have this problem. I've punched holes in the firewall, turned it off, but no luck. I also have network discovery "ON". I even REIMAGED THE MACHINE, (it was time anyway), so it's a fresh patched copy of vista. I have latest version of itunes on all machines. I don't have QoS turned on in the router either. Vistadesktop can ping the appletv and and know they are all on the same network, 192.168.1.xx

So I got really creative and connected the vistadesktop "WIRED" to the router instead of wirelessly, with the appletv still wireless, and voila! it worked instantly. I have homesharing working! Unforunately this setup is not viable for the long term in my house so I've got to figured out what the problem with the wireless connection is???? Any ideas? It's just a standard 802.11g internal pci card. I even tried a USB wireless adapter I had laying around and got the same results... no homesharing 😟 I can't imagine that it's a router issue as the other laptops work just fine wirelessly with the wireless appletv. It's just this piece of junk vista machine. I'm at a total loss on what to troubleshoot next...

I was able to solve the problem by going into Windows Firewall with Advanced Settings: Run>firewall.cpl, choose Advanced Settings, Inbound Rules, double-click iTunes from the list (to open Properties), choose Protocols & Ports tab then make the following changes.

Select Protocol Type TCP, then for Local Ports choose "Specific Ports" and specify 3689. Apply. Next, select Protocol Type UDP, for Local Ports choose "Specific Ports" and specify 5353. Apply. Click OK to get out of Firewall settings.

It all worked for me after this, including ATV2, iPhone4 remote app and iPad remote app.

Well, sorry, it didn't all work. What I later found was that Remote Speakers in iTunes would no longer connect. At least on my system this is a *Windows Firewall* issue. When I turned firewall off (for my private network) everything worked--speakers, ATV2, Remote on iPhone and iPad.

Not comfortable having firewall disabled, I created a new inbound rule to allow iTunes on all ports. I know, this already appears to exist. However, when I created the new rule, using the New Rule wizard in Advanced Settings, and chose itunes.exe from Program Files, disabled the original rule, turned firewall on again, it all worked. I did have to unplug ATV2 and power it up again, and turn off Home Sharing in iTunes (then turn it on again immediately). All seems to be working.

I'm on a Mac and had the same bugger of a problem. Home Sharing worked great for about six weeks and then poofo... nothing. Can't see my computer. After fiddling around a bit here's what I did to finally get it to work.

1 - Turn off my Firewall
2 - Quit and Relaunch iTunes
3 - Restart Apple TV

This worked for me and I could see my computer again.

IHMO, THIS IS A BUG introduced with the 10.1.1 update. We could see my wife's computer just fine (without all of this nonsense work-around) and she has not updated.

Hope that helps someone.
Merry Christmas,
-Werner

Had the same issue. Resolved in windows by doing the following:
1 - go to the windows control panel
2 - click on Administration Tools icon
3 - then click on Services
4 - right click on "Service Bonjour" (this is how it is called on my PC)
5 - start the service
6 - close then re-open itunes

I bought an Apple TV today and have been very frustrated trying to link it up with iTunes through wireless. When I connect my ATV with an ethernet cable to my router, it will be able to access my iTunes library. When I go wireless, however, the ATV can't access my iTunes library at all. It's able to access Netflix though, as well as radio. I also notice that I don't get any "Apple TV" under devices in iTunes in either setup. I tried using the Remote app on my iPhone, and same issue. It can see my library name, but cannot access it, and also does not show up in Devices in iTunes. I've disabled my Windows Firewall and it doesn't make a difference. I've opened up TCP 3689 and UDP 5353 ports on my router, still nothing. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

I'm currently using Win 7 64bit and fully updated iTunes. I have a Belkin G wireless router

Make sure itunes Homesharing is enabled and on, and all devices are using the same Apple ID. Enable file sharing in Windows if needed. Lastly, what fixed mine (also W7 64Bit) was to turn off QoS deep in my router settings.

Alexkitkat, I suggest going into Windows Firewall with Advanced Security and creating a new inbound rule for each of iTunes and Bonjour, disabling the existing ones. I don't know why, but selecting these programs from the Browse window in the rules wizard has solved the problem for me.

Using the specific TCP and UDP ports as you have done did not work for me--it allows iPhone/iPod remote to control iTunes, but broke my ATV2 connection.

I was just reading this thread while trying to remotely help my parents set up their AppleTV(2g) and my wife saved the day. They have a Vista PC connected via ethernet to their router with Atv(2) on wireless working fine by itself but couldn't get the AppleTV to see iTunes. I was starting to try to figure out their firewall settings and router details when my wife reminded that they might have forgotten something simple, so here it is:

Make sure that in Windows iTunes' Preferences->Devices tab that you have turned on "Look for remote speakers" and "Allow iTunes control from remote speakers".

I am having the same issue I have not tried wired connection to the Router I will try that tomorrow. I did try wired to the Apple TV and no luck. All other things seems to be working although slowely. I really bought this to play my Itunes Library. If its not going to work it is going back to the apple store tomorrow

I have the firewall off and even went as far as uninstalling mcaffe virus software and still nothing. Anyone else have any ideas. I did try the Qos thing and still nothing

Hi all,

First post for me in this thread. Just wanted to chime in a say that I have the same issue, and was unable to correct it, even though I was on the line with the highest level of tech support with Apple. Even swapped out my ATV2 for a new one to no avail.

This issue is some craptastic programming by Apple. The issue has to be something wrong with the network handshake in the latest versions of iTunes. I have to figure it's something to do with the version of Bonjour that is bundled with it.

Hopefully, someone in Cupertino is listening.

After losing a day messing around with this thing I disabled Windows Firewall which was redundant anyway with Norton and a hardware firewall, and the unit worked perfectly.

<Edited by Host>

Just an update on my situation. Spent an hour with Apple Support, still could not get it to find my iTunes library.. I also did not like the little quips from the guy about not having an Apple router or Apple computer. Lastly, he suggested to bring it to my local Apple store. I decided to return it instead, I already spent 2 days trying to get it to work. It's the same problem my Remote app on my iphone. So if I can get that to work in the future, then I'll buy the apple tv again, bleh!

How did you do that? I mean in regards to turning off you QoS protocol? I have the Apple Airport Extreme. I am at such a loss and state of confusion why my home sharing just wont work. Please help. I thank you so much in advance.